Stranger than Fiction
by la lisboa
Summary: Castle's got a secret even bigger than the Johanna Beckett case...It's about what he likes to do in his spare time. What's that, you ask? Read Nikki Heat fanfiction, of course! Until one day when he finds a story that's more than he bargained for. Parody


**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything you recognize.

**A/N:** This is _parody._ It is meant to be amusing. If you are frustrated by the current season, you will find it especially amusing. If you are in love with this season, you may not enjoy this. Read at your own risk.

Much thanks to Pandorama for the assist.

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><p>Castle finished typing and hit save. He leaned back, content with the chapter he had finally completed. He closed the document and glanced at the clock. Still twenty minutes before Alexis had said dinner would be ready.<p>

He knew exactly what to do.

He stole a glance around to make sure he was still alone (he hadn't heard the door open, but for the sake of his pride, he had to be certain) and then opened a new internet tab. It was his third most visited site, but hidden from the popular list in case Alexis ever, for some strange reason, happened to be using this browser on his laptop. He simply couldn't risk it.

Eighteen minutes.

He opened the page and grinned at the list of seemingly endless possibilities. The first story listed was called "Stop and Stare." It promised to be a song-fic (whatever that was) and also promised the story was better than the summary. Deciding to give it a chance, Castle clicked on the link.

_"Hey Nicki." Rook said._

"_Hi Rook." She said back, "What do you think?"_

"_About what?" Nicki spun around. "Me of course."_

"What the-" Castle gasped. He immediately hit the back button, horrified. He vigorously rubbed his eyes, trying to blot that image from his mind.

He wasn't exactly sure why he did this to himself. These people wrote stories that were shockingly bad. Had they even read the book? Had they read any book ever? The dialogue wasn't even correctly punctuated. And it was spelled _Nikki._

He had discovered fanfiction by accident, but now that he had, he simply couldn't tear his eyes away. Although he couldn't quite admit it to himself yet, he got an ego trip seeing what other people were doing with his characters. Well – maybe he would if the stories were better. But the fact they used his characters at all was, well, gratifying. Not that he read for gratification – no, he told himself he read to see if there was any up and coming talent he had to watch out for.

Of course, the feeling of smug superiority that came along with reading such outrageously bad stories was nice, too.

Twelve minutes.

Just enough time to vet and reject most of the stories on this page. Because he refused on principle to read any story that didn't comply with the courtesies of proper English, he clicked the stories indiscriminately, skimming the first few paragraphs for egregious mistakes. The second story didn't use paragraphs. He was offended by the extraneous use of exclamation points in the summary of the third. The fourth was only a hundred words – not bad, but too short to be a real story. With a discontented sigh, he dutifully flagged it for abuse of community guidelines. Finally he stopped at the fifth.

The first few paragraphs looked decent at least, maybe even interesting. He glanced up at the title. _Heat of a Match_. The pun made him cringe slightly, but the concept intrigued him. He read on.

_Sweat glistened on Nikki's skin as the sunlight streaming from above glanced off her, causing her to sparkle…as though magic itself was at play._

Magic itself? He was horrified, granted, and found himself hoping that this wasn't another instance of Nikki turning into a vampire. But something about the narrative voice struck him. Though he'd never use those words, there was a familiarity – as though he could hear Nikki herself narrating.

"_Nice point,_" _Rook begrudged her, torn between the blow she'd just delivered to his masculinity_ – Blow? Masculinity? Was this intentional or just idiotic? Castle found himself leaning forward towards the screen, somehow desperate to find out _- and the enjoyment of watching Nikki sprinting across the court, perspiration plastering curls against her forehead, eyes fiery as she met him point-for-point. _Well, this was just stupid. First of all, it was still unclear what sport they were playing – tennis? Basketball? He'd learned sometime in high school to avoid vague plot points that left the reader more hung up on logistics than substance. And second of all, it was _really_ cheesy. At least when he wrote it, there was some element of mystery. This had all the subtlety of an oncoming train.

Still, though…there was something about it.

_The game became more heated as the sun's rays beat down harder and the game became more intense. It was clear the game was no longer about basketball alone, but something more. _Now _that's _a relief, Castle thought. Nothing could be more boring than a story just about playing basketball. So the author had made an attempt at subtext. More like supra-text, considering how obvious it was, but at least there was a layer.

_Nikki caught his eye as she raced down the court, weaving the ball between her legs in a way that was undeniably…hot._

He wished he could deny it, but damn, that image would be hot. He was suddenly uncomfortable at the thought of someone fantasizing about Nikki this way. Were people writing these elaborate sex scenes – and yes, that had to be where this was headed, there was no other way out at this point – to get off on – dare he say it – some sort of verbal masturbation?

He tried not to think about the fact he had once been accused of that very crime. And about his Nikki Heat novels, no less.

_Rook shook his head, trying to snap himself back to the present, where Nikki was beating him…badly. Flexing his muscles subtly _– Can someone even flex their muscles in a subtle way? Castle rolled his eyes. _– Rook sprang across the court, putting himself between Nikki and the basket. Anticipating his movements, she dodged to his left. But Rook was too quick for her – knowing her as intimately as he did had its perks, one of which was knowing that she always favored her right side. Not to mention the right side of the bed…_

Castle found himself increasingly uncomfortable – how did the author know that the inspiration for Nikki favored her right side? They couldn't. Except…every movement being described was eerily accurate.

Now, now, he admonished himself. Lots of people favor their right side. It was only natural to assume that Nikki would be in that majority. But the right side of the bed…maybe that could be passed off as creative license, a nice poetic touch to the previous right side comment. Unless…could it be a stalker? His hackles rose. This was more than a silly indulgence now – it was a necessity. A possible clue.

"Dad!" Alexis called from somewhere far away. "Dinner!"

"Uh huh," he muttered. Dinner could wait.

_The ball bounced off of Rook's sneaker as he blocked Nikki, to her apparent surprise. With a yelp, she collided with him, her head hitting his chest hard, her arms inadvertently embracing him as she instinctively tried to stop herself from falling._

_They landed on top of each other, Rook barely able to brace himself _– um, ouch? Castle wondered. He'd have a concussion or worst, falling backward onto asphalt like that – _for the fall. He grunted as his head smacked hard onto the ground._

"_I'm sorry!" Nikki gasped. "Are you okay?"_

_Rook reached up and touched her face, feeling the sweat dripping down her neck. _(Castle squirmed uncomfortably in his chair, trying not to admit he was desperately hanging on to every word.) _He realized this was the closest they had been since their first night together. Nikki's long, dark hair had mostly fallen out and framed her face as she leaned forward._

"_Are you okay?" she repeated, her voice deep with concern._

"Please, don't kiss her," Castle begged. But at the same time, he was secretly rooting for it to happen. He knew about the fans out there, the ones who called themselves "Rikkis." Of course this had to be written by one of them.

_Rook leaned forward, his lips inching ever closer – _Yes, yes, _yes!_ Castle cheered – _but at the last second, Nikki pulled back, a sly grin on her face._

"Why would you do that?" Castle exclaimed. "You don't just create all that build up, all that tension and _heat_ just to have her back away at the last second!" Realizing he was speaking aloud, he quickly dropped his voice, praying that he hadn't actually been screaming his thoughts that loudly. Angrily he muttered, "Coy little tease."

Disappointed, but still grudgingly willing (okay, more like curious) to find out how the story would end, he turned back to the screen.

_Nikki waggled her finger, beckoning him forward. She quickly closed the distance between them and whispered sexily into his ear, "Get a hold of yourself, Dick."_

"Oh my-" Castle slammed the laptop shut, not even bothering to close the window. He pushed himself as far away from his desk as he could. He felt personally offended, maybe even violated, by how crass Nikki had suddenly become.

Two things. First of all, no one should ever, let him repeat, _ever_, use 'sexily' as an adverb. He found fewer things less sexy than being completely obvious about being sexy. But second…why, why, _why_ did the author have to have Nikki suddenly address Rook's…yeah. There was only one justifiable reason to ever use "Dick," capitalized like that in dialogue, and it was _not_ to address a part of the body. The only reason to ever put that in dialogue was when the speaker was addressing someone who's name was, unfortunately, Dick – or, well, Richard.

_Wait…_

He rolled cautiously back to his desk and opened the laptop once more. Surely it couldn't be…no, he was reading too much into it. There was no way, simply no possible way, that this was…

Unless it _was._

Castle scanned down the page to the last line he'd read. _"Get a hold of yourself, Dick."_

_Rook gazed up at Nikki, eyes glassy as though the fall had done serious damage. Of course, for the impenetrable Rook, there was only one place he was vulnerable: his sense of pride. As she stood over him, her lips curled into a wicked grin. "Sorry, Rook. I think you and I both know that would be _way_ too meta."_

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><p><strong>AN:** Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you thought or particularly enjoyed. This will most likely not be continued past this chapter, but I could be persuaded otherwise.


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